TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT ROBOT.
BY VICTOR APPLETON II.
ILl.u.s.tRATIONS.
Sermek side-stepped but not far enough He managed to snap two shots of the plane and the bird Cautiously he made his way to the canopy and beamed his flashlight inside Tongues of flame spit from the opening The robot headed directly for the mayor Zoltan backed toward the fire door Marco carefully set the model on the desk in exactly the same position Tom had left it A blinding flash enveloped the opening above him A formation of up-jutting rocks caught the Skeeter like a giant outstretched hand The extraordinary sight drew a large audience of plant workers Before the men had recovered from the first attack, a second blast of flame poured from the jet lifters "He"s got it!" Tom suddenly yelled
CHAPTER 1.
THE PHANTOM JET.
"Hey, Tom, take it easy! We can stand only so many G"s, you know."
"Okay, Bud."
Tom Swift pulled back on the wheel of his diving jet plane. He had just dropped from thin air into the troposphere. Now, leveling off his delta-wing craft, the eighteen-year-old inventor grinned at the protesting voice from his friend seated directly behind him.
"What"s the matter, pal? Seventy thousand feet too much for you?"
"It"s the way you come down, Tom. My stomach feels as if I"d left it in s.p.a.ce."
"It"s all for science," Tom said, chuckling, as he guided the craft in a sweeping arc toward the town of Shopton.
Bud smiled. "Next time you"re going so high to test out a gimmick for that giant robot of yours, Tom, why don"t you take the old rivet-head himself along?"
"Smile when you call my robot names," Tom growled with mock ferocity.
Both boys looked like well-padded fullbacks with oversized helmets. Inside their flight gear, however, they were quite different. Tom, lean, tall, and with a blond crew cut, had a serious look in his deep-set blue eyes as he scanned the horizon. Bud, a skilled pilot himself, was not as tall as Tom, but he had shoulders like a hammer thrower and the open, frank face of an athlete who liked to play for fun.
"The worst is over," Tom called through his mike. "But keep buckled in tight.
I"m making another dive before I take her in. But I warn you, next time we"re going higher, where we"ll get hit harder by cosmic rays. It"ll be a better test of the effect of radiation on the relotrol."
Tom glanced at a black metal box with three dials resting in his lap. It contained the receiver of a control instrument to be used in connection with the giant robot he was building. Tom had partially completed the mechanical giant to be used for repairs and maintenance in a new atomic energy plant which his father was building. The relotrol would relay radio impulses needed to guide the robot working in areas of the plant where the radiation would be fatal to human beings.
"How did your gimmick react, Tom?" Bud asked.
""Not good. I"ll have to make some changes. Under THE PHANTOM JET 3.
really stiff radiation this relotrol would foul up the radio orders to the robot."
Bud grinned. "You mean Mr. Robot wouldn"t know what to do? He"d sort of go berserk?"
"Right."
"Well, what"s next on the program, inventor boy?"
"To work on the relotrol some more," Tom replied. He clamped his invention under the instrument panel to keep it from being jarred, then nosed the plane down in the direction of the Swift Enterprises airfield.
Below was the town of Shopton, with the old Swift Construction Company buildings on one side and the new experimental group on the other. The shiny rooftops of the laboratories reflected the morning sun.
"Swift Enterprises looks mighty enterprising!" Bud said. "Do you feel enterprising enough to work the bugs out of the relotrol right now?"
"As soon as we land, Bud," Tom said, looking down.
But Bud"s eyes were not on the airfield. They were following a black dot that had suddenly appeared against the horizon.
"Something"s coming at us from three o"clock," he said. "It"s too small to be a plane."
The speck quickly increased in size.
"It"s a bird," said Bud in amazement. "A large black crow."
Tom climbed a few hundred feet to avoid hitting 4 .
it, then cut the jet"s speed. As the bird winged below him, he said, "That"s too big for a crow. It"s larger than an eagle."
"But it is a crow," cried Bud.
Tom looked again and caught his breath. The bird was immense. It was shaped exactly like a crow but was larger than a vulture. The monstrous bird glided through the sky, then wheeled.
"I"d like to get a close look at him," Bud said.
"I"m not sure that would be safe," Tom replied warily. "The bird might panic and fly into one of our control surfaces."
He banked away from it. The bird, however, flew even closer to the plane.
"I"m going to get a picture of it," Bud said, slipping one arm free of his parachute harness and reaching for a camera he had put in a forward compartment. "May be a prize shot. Put her into a slow circle and hold her steady, Tom."
"Steady as she goes," Tom replied, grinning.
His expert knowledge of aircraft was one of the many technical skills possessed by the young scientist. Bud knew that Tom could keep the plane as stable in flight as it was when standing on a runway.
Loosening his chute still further, Bud peered through the range finder and focused the lens on the crow. He was about to trip the shutter when the plane suddenly lurched violently. Bud banged his head against the canopy.
"What happened?" he yelled.
THE PHANTOM JET 5.
A look of worry creased Tom"s forehead. "She went out of control, Bud. Must have hit an air pocket."
As he checked the automatic horizon, the ship flipped into a series of erratic rolls and sideslips.
"Hey! What"s-?" Bud"s cries were choked off as he gasped for breath.
Tom worked frantically. "The controls aren"t responding right, Bud. I"m going to try for alt.i.tude."
He pulled back on the wheel but the plane did not rise. Instead, it pivoted slowly and began to move in the opposite direction, away from Shopton.
"It seems to be on a planned course!" Tom cried, half stunned by the ship"s ghostlike actions.
Tom struggled desperately to regain control of the plane. He reduced the fuel flow but the ship continued to pick up speed. When he tried to dive, the craft pointed straight ahead!
"For the love of Mike," Bud exclaimed, "what"s going on?"
"I"m trying to figure it out," Tom replied tersely. "Sit tight!"
Tom used every bit of flying knowledge he possessed, but the plane ignored every attempt to bring it under control.
"Can"t you bring her down?" Bud asked frantically.
"No. Something has kayoed our control instruments," Tom answered. "But we still have one chance. I may be able to stall her and glide in."
6 .
Tom reached down and pulled a gear handle. The plane"s wing flaps slowly spread open and the jet slowed for a moment. Then, as if angered by this latest move, the craft went into a tail spin. Over and over it spiraled toward the ground.
"Bud!" Tom yelled. "Jump!"
Desperately Bud tried to tighten his parachute harness which had loosened when he reached for his camera.
Meanwhile, Tom was fighting to release the hatch. It, too, seemed to be under the influence of the strange force. Below him, the earth was spinning crazily and every instant the patches of green-and-brown landscape leaped closer.
Tom knew he must act fast. Cutting the control wire leading to the hatch, he shorted it against another circuit. A crackle of sparks jumped across the cabin and the hatch in the floor sprang open. Automatically the seat ejectors were set off. First Bud, then Tom, was hurtled down and backward from the ship.
Tom counted and pulled the rip cord of his chute. Gripping the shroud lines, he started turning around in mid-air to search for his friend.
The sky below him was empty. But several hundred feet away he saw Bud, almost parallel to himself. Bud waved to signal that he was all right.
"Thank goodness!" Tom breathed. Then, gazing about for the plane, he muttered, "I hate to see that jet crack up. And it"s the end of the relotrol."
THE PHANTOM JET 7.
His thoughts were suddenly distracted by a roaring swish. Looking below, Tom gasped at the miracle taking place.
The tail-spinning plane had righted itself! Now the empty aircraft was flying in a straight course away from Shopton!
CHAPTER 2.
THE HEADLESS GIANT.
THEIR PARACHUTES buffeted by the wind Tom and Bud stared in bewilderment as the pilot-less jet flew into the distance. The great black crow was homing in alongside the deserted craft.
"If I could only follow it!" Tom thought in disgust. "But I"ll get some pictures of it."
Quickly he reached into the large supply pouch on his parachute harness which contained a combination camera and a small two-way radio tuned to the frequency of the control tower at Swift Enterprises.
He set the lens and managed to snap two shots of the plane and the bird before they flew out of range. Now he flipped the switch on the radio and in a moment an answer came.
"Get this message to Slim Davis p.r.o.nto," Tom said to the tower operator.
Slim excelled in handling THE HEADLESS GIANT 9.
high-speed aircraft and had proved invaluable in several emergencies.
Tom quickly briefed the tower attendant on the mysterious episode, saying, "I want Slim to find that plane. It took a westerly direction. There"s an invention of mine on board that I"d hate to lose."
"A spook plane!" the operator exclaimed. "I"ll phone Slim at once. Roger."
A few seconds later Tom hit the ground, somersaulted easily, and collapsed his parachute. Bud came up carrying his folded chute while Tom was radioing directions to the tower for picking them up.
"Of all the weird things!" Bud exclaimed. "First I thought the jet"s controls had been wrecked. But then it pulls out of the spin and flies off!"
"Something was out to get the plane and not us," Tom replied. "Otherwise, why force us to bail out first?"
"You"re right there. Say, how much of that little episode did you get on film?"
"Only a couple of shots. I wonder if they"ll prove anything."
"What gets me," said Bud, "is that crow. Do you think it had anything to do with kidnaping the jet?"
Tom looked thoughtfully into s.p.a.ce. "Right now, I don"t see how it could have."
A short time later a jeep arrived to take the boys to Shopton. They asked Morton, the driver, if any word from Slim Davis had come over the jeep"s short- wave radio.
10 .
"Not a thing," Morton answered, and no report came during the drive.
When they reached the Enterprises grounds, Tom and Bud went directly to the large private office the young inventor and his father shared. They were amazed to find Mr. Swift there.